Morris residents complain; NJ Transit promises post-Sandy review

Dec. 14, 2012

Written by

@APPLarry

NEWARK — NJ Transit is evaluating how well it did on superstorm Sandy preparation and recovery, with riders and advocates criticizing the agency’s communication with customers.

“We heard what folks said about communications,” Executive Director James Weinstein said after 15 people spoke during Thursday’s board meeting. “I will tell you we have listened, we have learned and we continue to make progress.”

NJ Transit is working on a review of how it prepared for Sandy and handled the recovery, along with a team of experts from Texas A&M University. The review is being funded through a U.S. Homeland Security grant, Weinstein said.

“They will go through it objectively, do a critique of what we did and how we can do it better,” he said. “We are not going to whitewash what we did — we’ll learn from it.”

Speakers included riders and transit advocates, all of whom praised the work of NJ Transit employees for restoring service on the storm-damaged rail system. But several complained that the agency kept riders in the dark until service restorations were announced.

“NJ Transit failed Communications 101,” said Gary Kazin of Denville. “No notices were posted at stations when service was suspended and when it was restored.”

Kazin and others said they would have appreciated updates about progress being made to restore service, reminding officials that many people were without power, Internet or cellphone service.

“There was no estimate of Morris & Essex Line service being restored until (an announcement) eight hours on a Sunday evening before the first trains rolled,” he said. “We would have been happy with you telling us how it was progressing.”

One rider cited information in a news release announcing restoration of services on the Gladstone Branch, detailing the type of work NJ Transit crews had to do to clear fallen trees and utility poles, as the kind of “progress” information riders were looking for.

After the meeting, Weinstein told reporters that customer service representatives were at stations.

(Page 2 of 2)

“If people don’t believe we communicated well, we’ll learn from that,” Weinstein said. “We’re going through the process and doing an after-action report.”

Spokesman John Durso Jr. said that report will likely come out next year.

Donald Winship of Mount Tabor said he had problems with using NJ Transit’s replacement bus service to travel to classes at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.

Among the problems were connectivity between local bus service in Morris County getting him to a connecting bus to Newark, and conflicting policies some private carriers had about cross-honoring NJ Transit rail and bus tickets.

“Buses need to connect better with each other,” he said. “I had issues with the way (NJ Transit) tickets were cross-honored by Lakeland Bus.”

Lakeland honored NJ Transit tickets if riders boarded at a train station, but not if they boarded in a town without a train station, such as at a park-and-ride lot, Winship said.

When he asked a question about cross-honoring on NJ Transit’s Facebook page, Winship said he was directed to call Lakeland Bus.

Weinstein said NJ Transit rail service is expected to be 95 percent restored by Monday, with the addition of the Raritan Valley Line returning to a regular schedule.

Two union officials defended Weinstein’s handling of what they called the worst storm they’d seen in their multidecade careers with the agency.

NJ Transit officials had been criticized for decisions to leave rail cars and locomotives parked at the Meadowlands maintenance complex and Hoboken yard, resulting in equipment being damaged by flood waters.

Patrick Riley, president of the union representing conductors and assistant conductors, backed Weinstein’s previous statements that the massive Meadowlands maintenance complex in the Kearny marshes had never flooded before.

“The water rose so quick that employes working there didn’t have time to get their cars out,” said Riley who added that he’s retiring in two weeks. “The majority of the equipment there (at the MMC) had mechanical defects – it would have taken hours to repair that equipment to move it.”